


Once the Spiral, Always the Spiral

by Twisted_Silver



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Typical Fuckhands, Canon Typical Weirdness, M/M, Michael Shelly, Other, Psychological Manipulation, Spiral!Mike, The Distortion, The Spiral, Timeline What Timeline, Trans characters by trans person, abstract sexual content, michael uses it/its, noneuclidean sex, not scary so much as confusing and unnerving, surrealist horror, the vast, trans!Mike, very very slightly dubious consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23162347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Silver/pseuds/Twisted_Silver
Summary: The spiral touched Mike long before the vast did. And now Michael wants him back. Its only fair, It touched him first after all.
Relationships: Michael "Mike" Crew/Michael, Michael "Mike" Crew/The Distortion
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	Once the Spiral, Always the Spiral

**Author's Note:**

> Fell down a rabbit hole that ended with me taking a break from writing my main fic to write a small thing where Michael takes Mike back for Itself.

Mike knew he was underground. He could sense the crushing weight of the earth above and around that tiny room, and he couldn’t feel his god. There was no wind, no sky, he was trapped and wholly cut off from everything that cared about him.

“That isn’t true,” came the ringing voice that hurt his head. It had brought him here. He couldn’t remember how it had happened. Its voice looped and spiraled around him, dragging a shudder from Mike. 

It was in front of him now, and above, and around. It looked like a man, if he didn’t look closely. But the features of It swam and changed and re-coalesced into entirely other shapes when he tried to focus on them. Trying to look at It made his head hurt, so he stopped. 

“Good,” It purred and he felt something that wasn’t a hand and wasn’t not a hand caress his cheek. It was too big and sharp and heavy to be a hand, but there wasn’t anything else it could have been. “You’re learning.” He felt like It was reaching into his skull, sharp points of pain blinking to life in his head. It hadn’t moved. 

He made a sound that could have been a whimper, might have been a whimper. He couldn’t think under the crushing earth. 

“You don’t need to think,” It cooed, and the sharp points of Its not-fingers shifted from running over his cheek to tangling in his hair. It grabbed a fistful and yanked his head back. A choked sound bubbled out of Mike’s throat and Its Cheshire grin unfolded against the exposed flesh of his neck. Sharp teeth grazed his skin, entirely too few and too many to have belonged to anything human. He should have been able to feel the creature’s breath, but It didn’t breath, and instead he felt the promise of pins and needles ghost across his nerves. 

This wasn’t working, Michael thought, as much as It was capable of such things. It had thought, foolishly It decided, that here where the almost-human knew his god couldn’t reach them, where he was most afraid, would have been suitable enough for It to take him back to Itself. But that was stupid. His fear didn’t belong to It down here, and as sweet as it tasted it wouldn’t help. It hummed to Itself, a sound that made Mike’s teeth hurt, as It pressed the not-quite-but-almost skin of what might generously be called Its face against the crook of his neck. It took in the radiated warmth and indecently fluttering pulse of the man that used to be human that used to belong to It. 

It slid Its hand back down to the man’s cheek and pressed Its fingertips into the flesh there. Blood welled up around them obscenely, tears pooled in Mike’s eyes.

“Does that hurt?” It asked, voice sing song and overlapping and so dis-cadent that Mike had to shut his eyes for fear of being sick. It removed Its almost-fingers to trace the scar where it crept up the man’s jaw. That had been Its gift, so many years ago, a marker of Its love seared so deeply into flesh and bone that it could never be erased or forgotten. Under Its touch It could feel Mike’s breath hitch in his throat, and decided this would be better moved elsewhere, where It could enjoy it properly. 

Mike was standing in front of a door. He didn’t know how or when it got there, nor did he know how or when he came to be standing there. Michael was next to him, towering over him, surrounding him. It was speaking but his head hurt and he couldn’t understand the words. He tried to say something but his tongue was heavy and useless in his mouth. 

“Shh,” It cooed at him. “You don’t need to speak.” He felt hands on him but Michael wasn’t moving. 

“Where… does it… go…” His mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. Parts of him sung dully with pain as the creature reached into and through him, despite being deathly still. He shuddered violently at the feeling and his legs gave out, but he remained in place. His body cried with fresh pain as Michael supported him the way a pin supports a dead butterfly in a glass case. And It admired his delicate structures in turn. 

“It leads home,” It said, smoothing his hair and then twisting it into curls. It did not say who’s home. Mike was standing properly again and the pain was a long distant memory. He reached for the handle of the door and It grinned. As soon as he stepped through he found himself falling. 

* * *

Mike thought he might be free. He could think more clearly now and he was falling. But it felt wrong. There was no wind rushing past him and he fell too slowly. He realized whatever this was, it was just a sick mockery of the act that was sacred to his god. As if it knew it had been found out the environment around him shifted, and he was deposited unceremoniously onto a carpeted floor. Dazed, he looked around, and for a moment tried to escape to the Vast - now that he wasn’t trapped under the cruel earth. 

“The Titan cannot hear you in here.” The laughter came from all around him and made his head swim until he couldn't think of anything but spirals and never ending halls. 

“W-what?” He gasped softly, pitching forward. He could feel bile beginning to rise in his throat. It appeared in front of him, or had It been there all along? 

“The Titan could never love you like I do,” It purred, touching Mike’s face with something, about which the only thing he was sure of was that it was attached to It. Something entirely unlike a fingertip came to rest against the corner of his eye, gently enough though, that the scalpel-like sharpness of it didn’t pierce him. Yet. 

“Nothing could love you like I do,” It continued, and dropped its finger away from his face. The way It phased and shifted when he tried to focus on It brought tears to his eyes. Michael wrapped all of Its fractal-like limbs around him and pulled him close to the ever-changing bulk of Itself. 

“The Titan does not deserve you,” It cooed at him, that sound vibrated through him and made his bones ache. “I touched you before it did.  _ I claimed you  _ **_first_ ** _. _ ” Something like anger had settled into Its twisting voice. As It spoke Mike could feel It tracing the scar It had left him with. The appendage, that might have been part of a hand - if you didn’t focus on it - split to match each branch of the raised flesh. Mike shivered, and It fancied It could feel the lightning still trapped under his skin. 

“This is new,” It hummed curiously, finger finding a new scar that bisected on of the branches of the fractal It had left there. It could have found it in Itself to be angry about the flaw in Its perfect work, and might still later, but for now It was delighted to see he had changed himself. That was a very good sign indeed. It pushed the thing that was not quite, but still painfully human back and shredded his shirt easily, leaving him bare chested under Its gaze. 

Mike caught himself on his elbows, head still fuzzy. Michael’s eyes raked over him, lingering on the two symmetrical scars on his chest. It reached out and touched one. Mike shivered, though whether it was from the touch or the chill that came with the loss of his shirt, he wasn’t sure. It paid no mind, apparently fascinated by his top surgery scars. 

“What did you do?” It asked, voice still nauseating. 

Mike would have had no desire to try and explain transness to the Distortion on the best of days. But now with his head spinning, and his thoughts drifting to spirals he wasn’t even sure if he could. Still of all the lies to have settled on…

“Nothing.” He said, fighting off a dizziness that was wholly unlike anything he’d felt with the Vast. He doubted Michael even knew what gender was. It barely understood names. 

It clapped Its almost-hands together gleefully. Mike was lying to It. “How utterly wonderful!” It grinned, and leaned over him - still propped up on his elbows - caging him in with more or less the amount of arms a human should have. The Cheshire grin and blonde curls filled Mike’s vision, in Its eyes he saw spirals. Before he could speak It closed the distance between them and captured his mouth with what might have been called Its own. He made a sound of protest, but then his head was filled swirling static and the twisting shapes of Michael’s face, and he had to close his eyes. He felt It purr against his lips, Its hands roaming over him, although It was still using them to hold Itself over him. Where ever it touched his skin tingled with pins and needles. Despite himself he moaned. 

“You’re too good for the Titan,” he heard It say, even though Its… tongue? Was still very much occupied with his own. “I can give you so much more.” It continued. Its movements were more aggressive now and he felt sharp teeth on his neck and collar bone. One of Its hands settled on his stomach, and he felt hot static start to pool low in his gut. 

It was still talking to him, even as It seemed to map his body and mind. Telling him It would protect him, that It loved him, that he  _ belonged to It.  _ He couldn’t possibly hope to discern what around him - within him - was truth, was real. The idea of trying to untangle the twisting, spiraling things around him, to try and see and follow their shapes to a truth suddenly seemed laughable to him. So he stopped trying. He let go and accepted everything. From the impossible shapes and angles of Michael, to the words It spoke, and even how it managed to speak them. As he did he felt something inside him, something that had been ragged and painful for as long as he could remember, calm. The spirals in his head no longer ached. 

Micheal felt the moment the man surrendered to It at last. It shivered at the exquisite feeling and redoubled Its efforts, relishing the sounds Mike made. “Good,” It purred, “You’ve done so good for us.” He reached for It and It gave him something solid - solid enough, the creature that It was did not deal in solidity - to hold onto. It knew that it would still take time to fully wash the Titan’s influence from the man, but time was of no object to It. 

“Who do you belong to?” It hummed, “Who is your god?” 

“ _ You. _ ” Came the breathless reply. Mike’s skin burned as if with a fever, but he knew It would take care of him. He trusted It. 

When Michael sat up again Mike wasn’t sure if the pleasant swirling in his head was a result of giving himself to the creature or of the orgasm that had ripped through him. Opening his eyes he found that the way Michael shifted no longer hurt his head, now that he knew he didn’t need to make sense of it. He felt lighter, but not like he had with the Vast. It kissed him and his head filled with warm static and spirals and the after image of a creature made of shifting fractals and endless halls.

* * *

To passersby, the only noticeable difference between the man who had entered that door weeks before and the one who left was that his eyes seemed less empty and impossibly deep. But he no longer dreamt of infinite skies and vast deep oceans. He no longer craved falling. Instead he dreamed of spirals and fractals and twisting endless hallways. Now he wore names and truths and lies as it suited him. And, with the help of a god that loved him so deeply it hurt, he could shift and blur his shape to match. 

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: when I was writing this I was so caught up in the euphoria of wanting the Spiral to trans my gender that I hadn't considered the possible implication of "being trans = lying". That wasn't what I was going for at all, it was meant to reflect the spirals nature of constant change, not to portray transness as deceit. 
> 
> You can find me at [gayforthegoblinking](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gayforthegoblinking) on tumblr to discuss the story and other stuff.


End file.
